It's pretty simple really. Cars have gotten a lot safer over the years, so driving-related deaths have consistently gone down. That's if things made sense. But get out of my dreams and get into my car and you'll realize that life is a highway and, often, it's a highway to hell. Everyday is a winding road. That's true for driving and it's true for life. And it turns out what's going on in our lives can have as big an impact on driver safety as the safety of our cars. Are we being driven to distraction or driven to the edge? Strap yourself in for this NYT Mag(Gift Article) from Matthew Shaer, who provides a crash course on a subject that could drive a person mad. Why Are American Drivers So Deadly? "Multiple airbags were standard on nearly every new vehicle, regardless of price, and backup cameras and lane-departure and blind-spot sensors were cheaper to produce. The improved technology meant that drivers not only had more peripheral awareness; they were more likely to survive crashes that might have killed the occupant of an older vehicle. 'It all made sense to me — all the things that were supposed to be working were working ... But then things stopped making sense. Everything changed, radically, like someone had flipped a switch.'" (Maybe self-driving can't come fast enough it we want cars to slow down...)

2

Underwater Assets

"One property in Virginia Beach has flooded 52 times — including four floods in 2020 and another two in 2021 — with total payments amounting to $784,967. Another property on the Outer Banks of North Carolina has flooded 44 times, with payments totaling more than $2.2 million. There are 30 properties that have flooded at least 30 times, the data shows." These are extreme cases. But extreme weather is making them less so, and as with the climate in general, citizens and Congress don't seem to be getting the message (even if insurance companies are). WaPo (Gift Article): Thousands of U.S. homes have flooded over and over again. Here’s where.

3

Ecuador Crosses a Line

"First, a man with a pistol appeared in the middle of the public TV station’s live transmission, followed by a second man with a shotgun, then a third and more. With the show’s “After the News” title behind them, station employees were brought onto the set and ordered to lie down. Screams could be heard followed by the sound of gunshots. 'We are on air, so you know that you cannot play with the mafia,' one of the assailants is heard saying." Sadly, this episode is indicative of an even bigger, and growing, problem. Ecuador’s escalating gang violence is broadcast live to the nation as masked gunmen storm TV studio.

+ BBC: How Ecuador descended into gang violence.

4

Pencil Pusher

Over the years (stretching into decades), I've split my time between trying to go viral and obsessively researching products. Maybe TikTok is the answer as it's become a crossroads of social and shopping. Or maybe John Herrman just has more lead in his pencil. What I Learned Selling a Used Pencil on TikTok Shop. "It was supposed to be a test. Suddenly hundreds of people were watching. What’s going on here?"

+ Sludge Videos Are Taking Over TikTok—And People’s Mind.

5

Extra, Extra

Houthis and the Blow Wish: The biggest threat in the Middle East is that the conflict spreads. A lot of countries and a lot of militaries are working to make sure things are contained. Iran and its proxies, not so much. US Navy and UK Royal Navy shoot down 18 Houthi drones and 3 missiles.

+ Hunter, I Gather? "Hunter Biden unexpectedly made a short appearance at a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday as House Republicans were starting the process of holding the president’s son in criminal contempt of Congress for not complying with a congressional subpoena to sit for a closed-door deposition last month." (I do my best to ignore all Hunter Biden news. Some days, it's impossible.)

+ Room and Boards: "Rudolph Williams says he was home in a Chicago suburb when he realized the doors and windows to his courtyard-style apartment had been boarded up with plywood, locking him inside." If this isn't a new season of The Wire, something is seriously wrong.

+ Lloydian Slip: "Lloyd Austin's struggle with prostate cancer − or, more specifically, his refusal to readily disclose it to the public − has launched a firestorm of criticism and put the White House on the defensive. Men's health experts, however, say the defense secretary's hesitancy shouldn't come as a surprise."

+ It's the Right Week to Stop Sniffing Glue: "Whenever he is accused of something — no matter what that something is — he responds by accusing his opponent of that exact thing. The idea is less to argue that Mr. Trump is clean than to suggest that everyone else is dirty." (Yes, the point of this kind of zone flooding isn't to make you believe anything, it's to make you doubt everything.) NYT (Gift Article): One of Trump’s Oldest Tactics in Business and Politics: I’m Rubber. You’re Glue. (It's far past time for the rubber to hit the road.)

6

Bottom of the News

"The instructions were simple: Lying on cots while wearing eyeshades, participants were directed to take deep belly breaths without pause to the beat of fast-paced music booming from loudspeakers. The exercise, they were told, had the potential to induce an altered state of consciousness so profound that breathers sometimes describe it as reliving the terrifying moment of their birth. Past participants claim to have caught glimpses of past lives. A few minutes into the session, which lasted nearly three hours, several participants began to weep. Some shook their limbs wildly, looking possessed. An outsider walking in would have been startled by the scene." NYT (Gift Article): Breathing Their Way to an Altered State. (I never realized that breathing could become more popular.)